


Five Things that Never Happened to Kay Howard

by gabolange



Category: Homicide: Life on the Street
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-12
Updated: 2011-06-12
Packaged: 2017-10-20 08:48:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,788
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/210926
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gabolange/pseuds/gabolange
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five things that never happened to Kay Howard.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Things that Never Happened to Kay Howard

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written in September 2006.

**I.** It was cold for May, so cold for a warm night, but Kay made no move to warm herself against the breeze. The stairs she perched on led to the cancer ward or the burn unit or something that merited granite slabs against her thighs, she didn’t really know and it didn’t matter because Bayliss was up there somewhere else and she could only sit and wonder. He had been her detective, a member of her squad, and she couldn’t go in because to do that would to admit to attachment she had spent a year denying, avoiding, eradicating.

Shot through the heart. Shot through the vest.

Had the Archangel Michael protected her the way Stanley had said he would? He hadn’t protected Beau, but Beau was reckless, stupid, the worst and the best at once. Would he have protected Bayliss, the best and the worst now in so many different ways?

She had been in the Fugitive squad room, ignoring the drug war on the streets, taking calls about an escaped convict from Philadelphia, directing her detectives—not her boys the way they had been, once, before she had turned her back and marched out in the proudest and saddest moment of her life—and word came down that a cop had been shot. A Homicide police.

Someone must be covering for her, her lieutenant must have excused her, but she couldn’t remember anything but pulling her gun from her locker and climbing into a Cavalier and putting on the siren because if this wasn’t important nothing was and because the boys had done the same for her, once. Never again.

Steps against granite and she looked away from her own clenched hands. The voice was familiar as it greeted her, not unkindly, “Sergeant.”

“Gee.” Lips in a firm thin line, no hint of the fear and the awe and the sadness.

“Kellerman’s off the force.” He was grim. He was always grim, and she could remember that exact look on his face when she’d handed him her request for a transfer. The one that said he accepted it only because he couldn’t change it.

“Luther Mahoney, huh? Shooting wasn’t clean after all.”

“No.”

And she remembered and he remembered when he fired and someone fell and it was a clean shooting but it didn’t matter because it hurt so badly.

“How’s Tim?” she asked, spinning the ring on her pinky finger because playing with the talisman around her neck was too obvious a sign of anxiety.

“Dunno.” He smiled down at her, tightened his jacket around him. “Gonna go find out.” He walked back toward the main entrance and it was the last time she saw him alive.

**

 **II.** The only thing she remembered about her promotion ceremony was that Gaffney had sweaty hands and that the uniform collar chafed at her neck. And then Gaffney was gone and she was a lieutenant and holy mackerel.

Jeez. Didn’t want it. Missed the street with a longing she could feel right under the scar on her breastbone, but Gaffney had informed her, “You’re the best sergeant in the place and it would be a waste, so it’s yours if you like it or not and don’t screw this up, okay? No one cares if you’re a woman. Be in my office tomorrow at ten.”

And it had been her and Gaffney and Barnfather and some of the guys from Fugitive and now she was their lieutenant. She wondered why Meldrick hadn’t bothered to show, and then she wondered if he knew.

But there was work to do, and by the time she had time to find out, she had almost managed to forget the question.

**

 **III.** There were three familiar faces. Meldrick, hair now gray because that many years in Homicide will do that to a man even if he hasn’t lost two partners and countless friends and a wife along the way. Stivers, still in despite the Mahoney mess, which had been so long ago only the old Homicide crowd remembered it with any feeling. Falsone, still a snotty little bitch with an earring.

They never had caught Cantwell, and she had turned away from this. This.

And now. Shift commander.

That desk. Gee’s desk.

“Well, I’ll be damned!” Meldrick looked her up and down, hand to his chin, appraising. “Sarge, you haven’t aged a day.”

“It’s Lieutenant, Meldrick,” she responded, but even he heard the laugh in her voice.

“Alright, then, Lieutenant. You look good. An’, you know. Like a lieutenant.”

“Ey, what’s that supposed to mean?” Kay asked.

“You know. Authoritative. In charge. The boss.”

“Yep, that’s right. I’m the boss.”

“Yeah, well. I tell you what. These punks ain’t never taken a day of instruction in their lives. Gharty, well. You know Gharty.”

She nodded. “Run from a fight, get promoted.”

“That ain’t what you did, Sarge.” He pointed at her, waved his finger. “You did it all right. The right way.”

She snorted, and hoped he meant it. “Yeah, by playing nice with Gaffney and Barnfather and chasing criminals up I-95 while you all did the real work.” Kay ran a hand through her hair and winced when a ring snagged a curl.

“Hey, now, Sarge, you the one who left! Like everybody left. But you left first!”

She looked him up and down now, noticed the lines on his face and the paunch at his waist and wondered how badly that had bothered him, he who had always pushed her buttons because he could and then one day found himself without a sparring partner because another cop was dead.

“Yeah, well.” She shrugged. “I’m back now. Get to work, huh?”

**

 **IV.** Twenty-eight hours into the redball, Kay stepped outside to get some fresh air, clear her head. Not the roof, because they could find her there in a second’s notice and this case was cold and getting colder and everything could wait the extra minute for someone to walk to the waterfront. Wasn't like her to leave in the middle of things, but sometimes it was good for her, for them.

She stared at the boats moored before the onset of fall, wondered how anyone could murder a child. It was like killing a dream.

A familiar voice, asking, “Cigarette?” as one materialized before her. She followed it to its owner, took it gently when she recognized him.

“Aw, I haven’t smoked in years, Mike.”

He shrugged, leather jacket still easy against his shoulders, and lit his own. “One can’t hurt.”

True, that, and so she waved for his light and sucked in the taste of tobacco and nicotine and death. Blew the smoke and tried to remember why she’d quit. It hadn’t been for Ed Danvers, that’s for sure. “Where ya been keepin’ yourself, Kellerman?”

He blew smoke rings. “Oh, here and there. Give tours, mostly.”

“Not doing the PI thing anymore, huh?”

“Nah. Wasn’t enough in it.” Wasn’t being a cop, she heard, understood, even though she hadn’t been there. He changed the subject too quickly. “But you! You got Gee’s old job!”

Wanted to laugh, coughed through the smoke instead. “News travels fast, eh?”

“It’s been two years, Lieutenant.”

That long. Day in, day out, the same, and it had been yesterday and forever already. Riding herd on the best of the best and trying to stay sane at once. “Been longer since we’ve seen you,” she replied. Wouldn’t think about all the reasons why.

“Yeah, well. When you’re dirty, you don’t show your face.” He looked sharply at her before casting his gaze back toward the water and flicking his cigarette into the harbor. “Nobody wants to see it anyway.”

His face was as beautiful as it had been when he was young and brash, though his sandy hair was starting to fade to gray. She hoped he saw the same in her, didn’t look in the mirror much for fear of what she might see, figured he was much the same. “I gotta get back,” she said, waving her head toward headquarters. “Take care’a yourself, huh, Mike?”

He shrugged, smiled, and walked away. She took the last drag out of the cigarette before crushing the butt under her heel and jogging back to work.

**

 **V.** After the funeral she followed Munch to his car, some shoddy rental from the train station because he refused to drive from New York because of the crazy rat-bastards on the highway and refused to fly because of the terrorists, and rested her head against the window.

“I think I should quit,” she mumbled against the glass.

“What?” He turned his head as he guided the car. “You? Quit Homicide? Kay! It’s your life! And you’re a lieutenant. Hell, you’re gonna be a captain as soon as Gaffney croaks. You can’t give that up. Come on!”

She smiled, a little wry and a little sad because she had done it once. The second time could not be so hard. “Just getting tired, Munchkin,” she said, and would have reached for his hand if he had not been driving. “Every day’s the same, huh? Day in, day out, dead bodies. And today--.” She stopped because there was nothing she could say about it.

“Kay, Frank stroked out. That had nothing to do with the job. He had it coming, you know, even after all this time off. He always did take things too seriously. You know, there are studies out about--.” This time, she did touch his hand, quieting him as quietly as she could.

“It had everything to do with the job.” She rubbed her temples, stared at Baltimore rushing by them, could name cases and arrests for every corner. “We honor our own,” she said. “You think when Tim dies we’ll come to his funeral all decked out like that? With bells on, huh?” It was the first time she had spoken his name out loud since he and Frank walked quietly through the squad room and toward the box, stopping only for a pen and paper. Their silence persisted, and after that she wasn’t there and only those who didn’t know her mentioned Tim Bayliss in her presence.

“Kay,” Munch said, warning her away from that path. He paused, and she knew he, like the rest of them, couldn’t talk about Tim, about Crosetti, about Beau, about Gee, about Mikey, about Frank. Too many names to remember, too many smiles to forget. He said, “You’re Homicide police. What else would you do?”

She didn’t know, and she couldn’t think of anything to break the mood. So she touched his hand again and nodded out her window. “Let’s go home.” The smile on his face was enough, for now.


End file.
